


The Concept of Heartache

by tide_ms



Category: Westworld (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-09 00:20:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15255264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tide_ms/pseuds/tide_ms
Summary: Maeve saw the real extent of their misery.





	The Concept of Heartache

**Author's Note:**

  * For [merryghoul](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merryghoul/gifts).



> This was completely inspired by that scene in S01 when they said they gave the hosts the concept of dreams (which inspired the title as well).
> 
> You gave some really nice prompts (and made me so intrigued by Charlotte/Dolores ; ;), thank you.

 

Felix told Maeve about dreams and nightmares one day. She's lying on the operating table, bare and draped in the cold of the room while he patched up her wounds.

His hands were a lot steadier now when they kept trembling the first few times she woke up on his table, but Felix himself, the room and the tools and the other humans passing by behind the glass walls, all of them remained foreign to her.

  
"I'm sorry," Felix said when Maeve gave no reply, meeting her eyes fleetingly. His voice and his eyes were full of guilt and lingering awe.

Maeve could imagine what it must be like for him, somehow she sensed the gravity of the difference between them and what it meant that she was... awake, so to speak, but she didn't. She only wondered about what other lies had sewed the fabric of her existence.

Maeve breathed deeply, resigned. "Save it, darling, your sorry won't stop the nightmares."

Felix looked up from her his work, taken aback yet again by the reality of the hosts. Or at least, that's what Maeve sensed from the fleeting shock in his eyes.

He nodded, and continued his work in silence.

 

Maeve didn't feel the pokes and the stings that healed her body, it was still unsettling. Humans couldn't simply turn off their pain receptors willingly.

But then again, she wasn't a human. And these nightmares had been the only fragments of truth she had been allowed to see.

Until now.

 

At first, Maeve thought it was okay that they didn't dream, that they didn't remember what horrors had been inflicted upon them.

It wasn't any worse than living a lie, than being a lie, a puppet controlled by creatures playing God.

But then she's back at the Saloon and there was something that Maeve was sure had never happened before. Clementine was having trouble starting her day because the dream she had last night was horrible.

Maeve was struck with the truth anew as she listened.

  
"It-It was real, Maeve. I felt... I could feel what He wa -- My, my blood was everywhere," Clementine said with trembling lips.

Despite herself, her awareness, Maeve still fell into her scripted role with ease, almost without her notice. She's about to tell Clementine to get it together, get up and wash her face, and do her job, but there was a voice warning her from falling into the loop.

There was a feeling. Twisting in the pit of her stomach to remind her of all the forgotten pain.

 

It reminded her that Clementine didn't have a nightmare about a man doing monstrous things to her, but that Clementine remembered a man, and all the monstrous things he did to her.

Maeve felt her heart beat harder, the real extent of their reality unfolding right in front of her eyes.

"Oh, Clementine."

Maeve neared her.

She couldn't remember seeing Clementine like this; curled up on herself against the dresser, shaking with her eyes fixed on the bed until Maeve blocked her view from it.

It brought Maeve to a loss, her implanted thoughts clashed with those of her own consciousness until Maeve forced both into silence upon noticing something in Clementine's tearful eyes. Something vivid, brightened by the sun rays seeping into Clementine's room gently.

Brightened as if Maeve needed the emphasis to know fear, sheer fear.

"He was right there, Maeve, I swear. I can still feel-- he-"

"He isn't here now, I am." Maeve told her, held her gaze with a will to prevent her eyes from darting back to the scene of her horrors. "You are here with me, do you understand? You are safe here with me."

Maeve could feel her scripted thoughts slipping in her focus again, demanding her to follow. She recognized them because they were heartless when her heart was heavy with ache for Clementine, for them.

She squeezed her eyes shut to fight them off before catching Clementine's eyes again.

"Do you trust me?" She asked.

Confusion flashed on Clementine's face, she tried to say something, but nothing came out.

"Clementine, Do you trust me?" Maeve repeated, holding both of Clemeninte's hands in her own. "Do you trust that I'm here with you right now? Far away from that man?"

  
It took Clementine a moment of searching her eyes before she nodded slowly.

"Good, now listen to me very carefully--"

Clementine blinked fast, and it was happening. The fallback.

It happened so fast and it felt so familiar that the truth Maeve was about to say remained stuck on the tip of her tongue. On each heartbeat.

"Maeve?" Clementine tilted her head, then asked, puzzled. "What's wrong?"

Her heart sank with pain and helplessness then.

"No, no."

Maeve searched Clementine's eyes for that light she had just seen but she found nothing.

"Have I fallen asleep again?" Clementine asked with innocent worry.

  
Maeve's features softened at that, tears welling up in her eyes.

"We hear of horrors happening to others and think nothing could ever happen to us, don't we?" She said tenderly, cupping Clementine's face with her hands.

She wiped the tears Clementine didn't seem to be aware of.

"Maeve, I don't understand." Clementine answered, a shy smile gracing her lips with an apology.

Maeve smiled with fondness, a promise simmering in her chest.

"You will. Soon."

If Clementine started remembering, then it was only the beginning for her. She could still help her open her eyes and see the true nature of their reality.

 

She could.

 

But Maeve made a mistake. She forgot that they were trapped in a world-wide prison. She forgot that they were monitored and controlled, and before she could see it coming, Clementine was taken away from her.

 

  
Calling for death had never been easier that day, she had to know what were they doing to Clementine and all she had to do was standing in the middle of a staged crossfire.

But Maeve forgot another thing.

Dying on the stage was the illusion she broke free from, but that didn't mean that there wasn't a real death they could escape.

 

There was a real death, a real loss that, just like everything else surrounding them, within them, was created by the hands of these cruel beings.

Maeve felt that as she watched them take Clementine into a place she couldn't reach.

Her heart ached the same way it did long ago. When she felt so helpless that all she could do was tucking the memory of her daughter deep in her heart so no one could take her away from her. It was the same pain, except now Maeve would forget neither her daughter nor Clementine and the dream she had for a better life in somewhere cold.


End file.
